Ten virgins - Shepard - XVI - Chapters 17 & 18

Required reading
Ten virgins by Thomas Shepard (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapters 17 & 18.

My summary
In Chapter 17 Shepard continues to look at Christ's coming, namely that he comes to his own people.

Then Chapter 18 turns to the fact that the coming of Christ is just then when the foolish went to buy oil.  We observe:
(i) that as God is long-suffering towards men, while through ignorance of their spiritual wants and security of heart they have no heart to use the means for supply;
(ii) that after long profession of godliness, it is a piece of foolishness to have any thing then to do but to die, and so give welcome to the Lord Jesus.

What grabbed me
Great description of heaven with Jesus: 'Then there shall ever be cohabitation and living with him, never to be any more parted from him, or he from them ; for while any is a suitor to one in a far country, he comes and goes away again ; but when marriage comes, then he carries her to his own house, and now live they must together; so the Lord in this life is sometimes with his people, sometimes absent from his people, but then they must cohabit together, and shall; (1 Thess, iv. ult), "And then we shall ever be with the Lord,"  To see the Lord in His beauty of grace and lave will be wonderful; but for dust and worms to be with Him forever, the poor things of the world to be with Him when thousands are cast by! we say that is beauty of a thing which no picture can express; now to see that beauty in Christ is marvelous, but to be in the bosom of one so amiable, how great is this!'

So great we cannot fathom it!

Next week's reading
Commence Chapter 19 by reading up to the paragraph beginning: 'Ver. 12. I know you not. Words of sense, in Hebrew, bear and signify affection also; the principal affections are love and hatred'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.